Sellout Watch: Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Julianne Hough
Sharp-eared pop-music fans may have noticed a brief reference to an old chewing-gum jingle buried in “Forever,” Chris Brown’s top-10 hit. “Double your pleasure/double your fun,” the R&B singer croons in the chorus.
What listeners don’t know — and what Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. planned to reveal Tuesday — is that the song is a commercial.
“Forever” is an extended version of a new Doublemint jingle written by Mr. Brown and scheduled to begin airing next month in 30-second spots for Wrigley’s green-packaged chewing gum.
Two other acts—Ne-Yo and Julianne Hough—are doing commercials for the gum company as well.
But Brown is a special case. He was commissioned by the gum company to write a song that updated one of its silly jingles. Brown’s label, Jive, sent it to radio and then, once it became a hit, they added it to his last album and re-released it:
Tom Carrabba, executive vice president and general manager of the Zomba Label Group, which includes Jive, says label executives initially had qualms about releasing and promoting a song recorded at an advertiser’s behest. “But the song was so potent and strong. That overruled us being maybe a little hesitant,” he adds.
It’s kind of an interesting issue: In most cases, a company will buy a song after it’s a hit. Wrigley paid for the song’s production, so in a way it was taking a risk.
But the bigger issue is the deception. Shouldn’t Brown and his record company have revealed the source of the song to consumers? Shouldn’t there be a label on the CD? “Contains the hit song ‘Forever,’ which was paid for by a chewing gum company.”
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Why? I can think of all sorts of disclaimers in the interests of honesty that would be just as relevant (which is to say, hardly at all) to the consumer. “No songs on this album were written by the performer.” “Singer’s off-pitch vocals have been mechanically adjusted.” “Songs were chosen for this album in hope of getting them on television.” I think writing a song based on a commercial is unlikely to produce a great song, but do most people care, once they’ve heard and liked a song? I mean, write about it, sure, deplore it, fine, but a disclaimer, seriously?
You probably already know that this has happened before. Just off the top of my head, the two hit versions of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, and “Jeans On” by David Dundas.
I guess I don’t see how it’s deception. Is there an implicit promise being violated between the industry and consumers that songs won’t be made out of commercials?
I don’t know the “Jeans On” story, but “I’d like to teach the world to sing” was written as a jingle and became so popular it was released as a single. It happened again a few years later with a Budweiser jingle which was actually re-recorded as “When You say Love” (Instead of “Bud”). People knew it was a commercial the first time they heard it on the radio. This was a marketing campaign disguised as a single. What’s funny to me is that MTV is playing the video even though it’s a 3 minute ad for Doublemint gum (Including the doublemint twins and Chris Brown chomping on a stick of Wrigley’s) but they won’t show a music video with too many scenes from a movie because that violates their advertising policy.
But Bill I think you & I are the only ones outraged!